The Hindu : Karnataka News : AICC for Poojary's continuance as party chief in State

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 31, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

AICC for Poojary's continuance as party chief in State

By A. Jayaram

BANGALORE, JAN. 30. It is the defeated candidates in the last Assembly elections, especially some of those who were members of the S.M. Krishna Ministry, who are more eager than the rest of the Congress clan in demanding an end to the coalition arrangement with the Janata Dal (Secular).

The Congress MLAs are stated to be hardly interested in destabilising the State Government.

The outcome of the A.K. Antony visit to Bangalore has been that the coalition Government will remain, so also the KPCC President, B. Janardhana Poojary. The visit has given the quietus to the long campaign for winding up the coalition experiment. The numerous visits made by party leaders to New Delhi have been in vain.

Party insiders note that it will be incongruous if the Congress terminates the tie-up with the Janata Dal (S) in Karnataka even while looking for allies in Bihar to be in the next government after the Assembly elections.

The Congress cannot do without allies in Uttar Pradesh and is already part of a coalition in Maharashtra.

The logic cannot be different for Karnataka. A top Congress leader told The Hindu that Mr. Antony appreciated the view that N. Dharam Singh, should be ensured at least a two-year tenure as Chief Minister. Moreover, the Janata Dal (S) was unwilling to accept any other Congress leader as the head of the Government.

After having asked Mr. Dharam Singh to run the administration, it would be unfair to unsettle the coalition.

The Congress High Command already has the record of removing Mr. Dharam Singh from office, the presidentship of the KPCC in 1999, to which he had been elected after a contest in 1997.

He was, perhaps, one of the very few elected Congress presidents of the State after 1956. Partymen note that most of the defeated candidates and former Ministers have their own agendas.

Some of them are aspirants for the presidentship of the KPCC and had, in fact, campaigned and camped for long in Delhi in that regard.

It was also pointed out to Mr. Antony that the Congress in Karnataka is unprepared to face Assembly elections.

The party organisation is still in a state of shock over the defeat in last year's parliamentary and Assembly elections.

Panchayat polls

However, when it came to the elections to the gram panchayats, the view was different. Those elections have to be gone through and not postponed although it is permitted for a period of six months from the expiry of the term of the panchayats under Article 243 E of the Constitution.

Though the gram panchayat elections are held on a non-party basis, as the other major political parties will be fielding their candidates, the Congress has to follow suit. There is also a view that the drought in parts of the State will worsen in the months to come and it would be better for the Congress to face the electorate next month. Moreover, it would be wrong to put off the elections, after the dates are announced by the State Election Commission.

Mr. Antony's visit also gave the opportunity to the partymen to engage themselves in some plain speaking on the causes for the defeat in the elections. A suggestion is stated to have been made to the AICC leader that the next KPCC President should be from a Scheduled Caste.

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